119.
story for Levison, save this present one � the last
of the year.                 As I sit, �tis a dark
night out o� doors, and snowing lightly.   I had half
intended starting for Bellew�s, but tired with tramping
about (I spent the afternoon on the �European�) in
a big pair of knee high boots which I�ve just got made,
I resolve to stay in doors, read, think, and go to
bed early.                       What are the people in
this house doing just now.  I think I can tell.   In
the adjacent attic is Miss Church � plying her needle
probably.    She anticipates that the new year will change
her name and give her an Italian husband.        Oppo-
site, in the front attic is Mrs Gouverneur and her
brood.   I hear the spoiled-child�s voice of little May
querulously raised at this moment.         She is the
veriest little despot conceivable.   And now she�s howling.
Mrs G�s received a letter from her son Rawson
� and not yet answered it.      In six months she�ll
ignore the fellow�s existence, as she has that of a 
grown up daughter of hers, now in Australia.   What
are her hopes for the new year?      A third marriage
I suppose, in which she hopes to barter her selfish-
ness, uncertain temper and cockney vulgarity for a
rich, young, handsome, and well-born husband.
She, really, in a trashy lose sort of way thinks this
may come to pass!       I had an uproarously chaffing
evening three Sunday�s back, with her, and Miss
Church, in which I told the former, jocularly, more